Abandoned: The History of the WWE Hardcore Championship

Throughout history, professional wrestling has seen many championships.

In WWE, there are six major titles. Not many know that the company has had a total of at least 19 different titles, 13 of which have been abandoned for one reason or another.

The other two major companies owned by WWE are WCW and ECW, which have at least 15 abandoned and forgotten titles between them.

For as long as it takes, I will be concentrating on those forgotten titles.

Each slide will feature the champion, who they defeated, where and when they won it, the length of their title reign, any special circumstances that happened during their reign and a bit of commentary.

Belts with a lengthy history will get their own articles and may be broken up into two depending on the length.

For this edition of Abandoned I present the WWE Hardcore Championship.

The title was established in 1998 and was contested in hardcore-style matches.

The belt itself was an old “Winged Eagle” WWF Championship belt broken up and pieced back together.

When Crash Holly won the title for the first time February 2000 he said that he would defend the title 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It didn’t matter where the match took place, as long as the challenger had a referee with him, the title would be defended.

The title was defended everywhere from backstage to an amusement park.

When the roster was split into two brands, the Hardcore Championship ended up on Monday Night Raw, which is where it stayed until it was abandoned.

In 2002 the title was unified with the WWE Intercontinental Championship and was scrapped.

Throughout its short four year history, the title has seen over 200 champions.

Due to the amount of champions I will be doing this edition a bit differently.

The same format as the others will be used but where the 24/7 rule applies; it will all be on one slide.

The wrestler who ended up with the title by the end of the night will be the featured champion.

Any other title changes that occurred before they ended up with the belt will be mentioned, though.

Example: At WrestleMania 2000, the title changed hands 10 times. Hardcore Holly was the champion at the end of the night so he will be the wrestler featured in that particular slide. The other nine champions will be mentioned as winning the title as well, but they will not get their own slides.

It’s because of this format I was able to get all 200-plus champions into one slideshow! So let’s get started!

Pat Patterson

As Crash was defending the title against his cousin Hardcore Holly, Brisco snuck in and pinned Crash to win the title.

Later on backstage, Pat Patterson would surprise Brisco when he rolled him up to win the title.

Patterson wrestled throughout Canada and the NWA before being hired by WWF. He is known as the very first Intercontinental champion and has also won the North American Heavyweight Championship on one occasion.